


Power Play

by Azar



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 14:42:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azar/pseuds/Azar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was about passion and power, about drawing lines and crossing them, about cementing a partnership that would make the world tremble."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Power Play

**Author's Note:**

> This is related to--but not really a sequel to--my fic, "American Beauty." Basically it's the same LanaMuse. You don't have to read that first, but this might be a little less surprising if you do. Also, I didn't mark this as underage because during the early season, my friends and I all got the strong impression that Lana was at least one or two years older than Clark, not a fourteen/fifteen year old freshman. So, even if later canon showed she wouldn't have been, for the purposes of *this* story, Lana, like Kristen Kreuk, was eighteen in S2.
> 
> Thanks to LaCasta for the great beta, and to Deb, Medie, and Christina and their muses for encouraging Lana when they probably shouldn't have. *snerk*

Set. Break. Billiards spun apart with the loud "CRACK" of the white ball's impact still echoing in the wood-paneled room, each solid and striped number finding its own orbit somewhere in the solar system of plum-colored felt.

Lex straightened slowly, bringing the cue to his side like a warrior lowering his sword in détente, but always ready to parry again if attacked. He surveyed the microcosm spread out before him, eyes bright with strategy. If Helen wasn't pulling an all night shift in the ER, he might've considered teaching her the game, but truth be told he liked the solitude. In his mind, pool was a game best played alone, where he could constantly challenge the one opponent with the best chance of defeating him in games or in life: himself.

He didn't accept defeat.

Spotting a likely move, Lex bent once again over the table, his back to the wide French doors. With the grace of a lifetime's practice, he lifted the cue, slithered it across his outstretched fingers until it was almost touching the ball, and slowly drew it back to strike.

"Lex."

Damn! The voice knifed through his concentration just as the chalky tip came down on the white marble, sending the projectile off on a wild course to bounce harmlessly against the table walls with a mocking, soft thunk. The anger that rose in him in response was just as wild and far from harmless, but he clamped down on it with the entombing force of a landslide. When he turned, the only evidence of his annoyance was the tightness of his smile.

"Lana. This is a surprise."

A surprisingly exultant smile flickered across Lana's face where she stood in the opening of the doors, a long black coat hanging loosely from her slender shoulders to completely dwarf her in its depths.

"Your butler told me I could find you here."

He nodded slightly. "You've found me. Now..." Answering the unvoiced challenge in her eyes, he deliberately turned away back towards the table and lined up another shot. "What can I do for you?"

His only answer was the soft snick of the doors closing, followed by the metallic tumbling of the lock. Surprised, Lex straightened again and slowly looked away from his game.

Lana still stood just inside the doors. Or rather, something that looked like Lana Lang stood there, having discarded the coat like a reviled old skin. Something he had a good idea he'd met before.

There were a number of adjectives to describe the young Miss Lang's figure, but voluptuous had never been one of them. The creature standing in his office watching him with almost bloodthirsty eyes, however, had no trouble compensating. Her perfect, china-smooth belly button peeked daringly above the waistline--if it could be called that, as low as it hung on her hips--of a little black microskirt that looked like leather. Short leather, its hem barely covering the tops of her thighs. The shirt she wore, a racy, lacy red number that would've been transparent with just a slightly looser weave, came down only to the underside of her breasts. It hung off both shoulders too, revealing the black straps of what was clearly a Miracle Bra, giving her a cleavage Anna Nicole Smith probably would have envied.

The Lana-lookalike gave him only a moment to absorb the shocking sight before taking a step towards him on endless legs that rose bare above stiletto heels, not even a flash of silk or nylon obscuring the view of glistening natural bronze.

"Would you like the whole list, or just what you can do for me tonight?" was the sultry answer to his question.

He took a step back. "Let me call you a ride home."

Eyes that usually glowed with sweetness and light flashed dark and dangerous. "Don't give me that bullshit, Lex. I'm not under the influence, not of alcohol, not of any goddamned flower, and you know it."

She took another step, suddenly within his personal space. Obviously he'd missed a few paces, since she hadn't been one step away from him a moment ago.

"This is the real me. You know it. You've seen it." Those suddenly dangerous eyes glinted with something like disdain. "They've only glimpsed it, but they didn't believe what they saw."

Lex held his ground. "What do you want, Lana?"

Her whole face flashed with anger now. "I've had it all worked out. Every step of the way. You need me, Lex. We need each other. And I'm damned if I'm going to let everything I've planned slip through my fingers because you've suddenly developed a romantic side."

Without even thinking about it, his hand was gripping her wrist. "What I do with my own time, and who I do it with, is my business. If you think I'm going to betray Helen, or Clark--"

His tone had made men big enough to be decent bodyguards shiver, but she just pulled her wrist away and pressed in even closer all at once. He pushed her away then, forcefully. "Sorry, Lana, but I'm not my father. I don't screw my friends over for a quick fuck, and I don't believe in keeping four or five women on the side just in case the woman I love should happen to die or bore me."

"Do you love her enough to spend the rest of your life in your father's shadow with her?" she shot back. "Or was I wrong to think the great Lex Luthor had ambitions beyond playing would-be small-town hero to a bunch of hicks who will always whisper behind his back no matter how much he does for them?"

Her words were like poisoned darts, paralyzing in the twisted truthfulness of their taunts. Slowly Lex pivoted back to her, fighting the lightning-fast spear of intrigue that had spiked through him the day he was first introduced to this Lana Lang.

"For a girl who has so much disregard for this small town, you certainly weren't eager to leave it," he pointed out.

"Fuck Smallville. You want to know why I'm still here?"

"It would be a start, yes."

She thought she'd won: he could see it flash through her eyes. "Then let's get started." Another step, and the distance he'd put between them started to close again. And this time a flash of something dark and organic at the lower hem of the skirt made it pretty likely that his would-be seductress had neglected to don underwear. "'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' Ring a bell?"

"It's a familiar cliché, yes."

"Familiar because it's true. I'm living with Chloe Sullivan. Intrepid reporter extraordinaire, and the one person--besides the two of us and maybe your father, I imagine--most interested in getting to the bottom of the mystery that is Clark Kent."

This time it was Lex who took a step forward, closing the gap. Interest seeped into his voice in defiance of his determination to resist her games. "Go on."

"You know as well as I do that Clark is hiding something. If I leave now, go to Metropolis as the adopted daughter of nobody Nell Potter, I blow any chance I might have of finding out what that something is."

"Impressive."

"Not to mention the fact that as long as I'm here, Clark will never look twice at another woman--"

Lex raised an eyebrow at that.

"What?" she demanded.

"Chloe?"

Lana snorted. "Who, according to the nag herself, he ditched to come running to my side the second he thought I was in danger. But if I were to go away, every damned detail of his precious secret wouldn't do me a damned bit of good because he might just discover that he doesn't live and breathe by my whim. He might discover that his best friend really might be the woman of his dreams in disguise. And what good is knowing a secret if you can't control it?"

They were standing toe to toe again.

"So, how does this bring us back to here and now?" he asked.

"Because I have no intentions of leaving Smallville as Lana Lang, Homecoming Queen and one-time cover girl of TIME Magazine at the grand old age of three. I'm going back to Metropolis as Lana Lang, permanent accessory on the arm of the most powerful man in the world--Lex Luthor."

"Thanks for the warning." His voice was bemused.

"It's not a warning. It's a promise. A promise that you will be the most powerful man in the world because I will put you there."

"My own personal Evita Perón."

Lana's smile this time was triumphant, her voice low and seductive as she brought the palm of her left hand down to lightly brush the crotch of his pants. "Complete with all the privileges that analogy implies."

All appearances at restraint aside, Lex was male. His body reacted.

Forcing himself to think of Helen, he started to pull away again. But the touch morphed into a skillful grip and a gasp slipped past his control.

"I'd be good for you, Lex. You know it."

Her advance perfectly matched his retreat, all the while her hand continued its persuasive massage. When he was backed up once again against the pool table, Lana leaned into him without letting go her hold. He could feel the tips of her nipples through the thin fabric of both the blouse and the bra, and the slightly heavier cloth of his own shirt. When she stood on tiptoe to bring her mouth to his, he didn't fight it. The kiss was demanding and hungry, everything Lana had shown herself to be since she'd ruined his perfect corner pocket.

Her left hand still occupied, Lana's right hand found its way to his waist, easing the shirt up his torso until it slid out of his pants. Her fingers then wormed their way underneath and began to tease the bare skin of his chest the way her lips and tongue were still teasing his own. Her nails released one button at a time as they ascended.

"I'd be surprisingly good for you." It came out as a purr when their mouths parted long enough to gasp for breath.

His own hands decided they had been idle in this business too long, and found the bare skin of her midriff, sliding up from her hips towards the barely-there top. The pool cue clattered loudly to the floor, forgotten. Lana moaned and pressed her entire form against him, twisting with desire.

Lex took the hint and moved back on the table, freeing one arm to fling balls aside before lying down and pulling her with him. She kissed him again, her hands once again finding his pants and fumbling with the belt buckle. Unfastened, she yanked it free and hurled the strip of leather like a whip against the wall.

He shuddered as she slid against him, the movement hitching up the tiny skirt to reveal he'd been right about her choice of undergarments--none. Oh, God, he was almost sure he was going to tear the fabric if she didn't--

There. The button was free and he could both hear and feel the agonizingly slow journey of the zipper. He lifted his hips just enough to allow her to ease off the pants and black silk boxers beneath them. She leaned forward for one more ravenous kiss, then lifted her body just enough to position it over his erection and slowly, torturously, slid down onto him until their bodies were touching at every point inside and out.

It was the point of no return, and with its passing Lex was through with playing the target. If Lana Lang wanted to play this game, he was damned well going to show her who it was she was playing with and where she really stood in the grand scheme of things.

With one smooth movement, he flipped them both, still joined. Now she was lying on the table, her dark hair spilling like death onto the vibrant watered-wine color of the felt covering. Then with the same calculating slowness she had used to mount him, he began to move.

Lex had been the seducer in a thousand trysts. Lana might have the power to arouse his interest, even to break down his resolve, but thus far he had been passive, letting her take the lead and set a destination. But the true power, the power he had no intention of giving up, was that of making his partner reach that destination first. He knew how to use every part of his anatomy to send her catapulting over that final precipice, and as much experience as she had wasn't enough to arm her against his onslaught.

When she cried out, convulsing in his arms, only then did he let go and fall tumbling after her.

Someday he would wonder who had taught her the skills she had used to seduce him. Not the quarterback--Whitney had still been too convinced of his princess's vestal virginity to have ever wrestled this tameless siren. Nor could it be anyone in Smallville, or rumor would have long ago torn down her spotless, angelic reputation. Someday he would want an answer to that question. Someday he would demand it, demand much more of her if she intended to be a player, an equal in his world.

Tonight, however, was not about questions and answers. It wasn't even about love. It was about passion and power, about drawing lines and crossing them, about cementing a partnership that would make the world tremble.

Tonight was, simply put, a power play.

And Lex didn't accept defeat.


End file.
